Do you want to write a book?

Cinema and TV have really ruined the "real life" of what life is like as an author. They think that you go on these jet-setting book tours where dozens and hundreds of people show up, waiting hours, to buy your book and shake your hand.

Three years ago, for the book tour on my first novel, I was on national syndicated sports talk radio and some of the most powerful outlets in this region. However, those did not necessarily turn into sales. It sounded great to say I was on "x-and-y" radio show, but we didn't see any noticeable bumps in sales.

Also, book signings are so overrated unless you are Stephen King, John Grisham or even Jon Stewart. I had one in my hometown where I sold 30. On the release weekend, I was back in my college town (gigantic Midwest school), where I still had plenty of contacts throughout journalism and academia and I sold...no one showed up. This was with press articles in BOTH papers leading up to it, spelling out the time. I wound up giving a 30-minute talk to four passers-by who asked who I was at the signing. I told them and then held and impromptu clinic on how to write a novel in six months. I was like Coach K diagramming the last play of the game. Two of the four did buy the book, so it wasn't a complete long shot.

Three years later, I'm probably older and wiser. I am making less noise but, doing it myself, far more sales. What's the mark of success in books? To me, it's not air time but selling product. Who are the people looking to buy? Right now, statewide libraries because a) I keep 100% of the sale and b) they have NO returns. Each day, I go to my mailbox and get anywhere between 3 and 8 checks ($15 each) for my books. (Let's just say a recent return from a 10-day vacation was a nice little lift).

I would compare writing fiction to trying to break into rock music. Sure, you may be able to play "All Along the Watchtower" or "Girl Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)" but can you play those songs, all across the nation to packed houses? That's the sign. Look at the best-sellers -- they are books about diets, written by celebrities or, in the case of fiction, written by the 40 to 60 authors that are the Novel Stars. Most industries have about 50 "superstars" and fiction is no different. The trouble is, that unlike pro sports, where a superstar has a shelflife of 10-15 years, these authors can write for 30+ years. They don't go away unless they drink themselves off their yacht in the Pacific Ocean and are eaten by human-seeking sharks.

Book Publishing is a tough racket. Selling it is even tougher -- we have more Americans than ever but fewer readers than before. Sales go down, a little more, each year. If you believe in yourself, I say, "go do it", just be realistic. Media has made out the Life of an Author to be this "smug bastard" existence. A novel is considered successful if it sells, what (back me up here if I'm wrong, JR), 6,000 copies? My God. Do you have any idea how hard it is to sell that many for a first novel, especially if you aren't with a major pub house?? My first one sold just under half of that and that publisher begged off doing the second one, just because selling 2,500 was a challenge.

After that "empty" book signing I had on opening weekend, a friend of mine told me about Bob Seger's 1976 tour. He played in front of 80,000 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome, hitting what would be the apex of his early musical career.

Three nights before, Seger played in front of 50 fans at a Chicago bar.

You can do this but knowing your market for any book (playing your Detroit and not your Chicago) is the key for maximizing your efforts. Once I've gone through every library in the state (about 250 left to go), then I'll hit the adjoining states plus places the novel takes the reader. What sells in Iowa probably won't sell in Idaho. Remember this. Also, as you make contacts (as I have with libraries), I've found that they want to set up signings/appearances with me. It's not as glamourous as Barnes & Noble, sitting out there on a rich, mahogany desk as people make eye contact and walk past you to the Harry Potter table, but I'll take a dozen interested people in a small-town library conference room buying my book (at 100%) over trying to sell 20 books at a B&N (where you keep 55-60% of the cover price).

 

As someone who has been writing books almost exclusively for nearly twenty years, with about 2.5 million words between the covers, the sooner you integrate the process of writing into your daily life, respecting it for its occasional magic, but treating it like day labor, with all the same attendant difficulties, the better off you are, and the easier it becomes. I tell people over and over and over again to stop acting so damn precious toward the process. The people who are good at this, like those who are good at virtually anything, outwork almost everyone else who is trying to do the same thing and may be more talented and privileged. In my experience, there are damn few artistic geniuses who don't have to do that. I hardly ever think about what will happen to a book as I am writing it, or the doors it will open, or the cool stuff or the bad stuff that will happen because I wrote it (and I've had both happen - book signings with no one and times I've felt like one of the Beatles), or my expectations in terms of sales and reviews. I can control very little of that, and every second I spend thinking about that stuff takes me away from the work that I am doing. Besides, it's not like you write book, wait for it to be published, experience that and then begin the process again. It's like covering a beat - you have to roll out a story every day. You write the book, and by the time you are finished up and beginning the editing part, you had better have the next idea/proposal rolling out, and by the time that first book is published you should be well on your way to writing the next one and starting to think of the one after that. Some of the things I have in the works now are, literally, ideas I had and started lining up and working towards ten years ago, and I've already got things in the works for the next ten years.

I have a book coming out this fall. I'm halfway through the next one, and will be signing contracts for two other projects this fall. I'll finish the next book this winter, and one of the new projects, begin the other one and have something else going in the spring. And I already know that by next fall I better have another good proposal int he works.

Writing a book is not the running of a marathon. It's running every day to stay in shape for a marathon.

 

That's about as true a post as you'll find on this site.

Writing is work. It's hustle. It's about sitting down and getting it done.

Norman Mailer wrote The Executioner's Song in 15 months. It's over 1,000 pages long. Do the math. He sure as shit didn't fritter.

 

This has been a good thread, despite a few crashes into a guardrail along the way.

 

In Exile.

I'm tired just from reading your post.

Congrats.

 

I just started writing a book a couple months ago on a local team that won a state championship. Truly an amazing story that Disney couldn't have written better.

It's not going to be a major publication -- just local, a few thousand copies.

 

Hey, when the pass is that good, I can't help but put the puck in the net.